Humanist Union
__TOC__ Summary The Humanist Union is a socialist pseudo-meritocracy under the authority of Coordinator Roland Stein and the New Humanist Progressive Party. It is a militant nation-state with an expansionist ideology notable for a reservation towards foreign and especially non-human powers. Citizens of the Humanist Union are indoctrinated in the ideology of new humanism, which broadly advocates that humans have a responsibility to expand their reach and improve their form to meet the challenges of the universe; uniting humanity is one of the core goals of new humanism and an object of interest for the Union's citizens and politicians. While the state exists to serve its citizens and preserve humanity, it is the responsiblity of every man and woman to strive to earn his or her place in humanity's future. The absolute authority of the party (through the Federal Legislature) and Coordinator Stein ostensibly insure that it is merit, not social status, that determines one's success. Recent social and political liberalization has led to greater interest within the Union in regards to foreign relations and commerce, as well as more aggressive interest in liberating humans who chafe under the parasitism of corrupt foreign states. Basic Statistics Sector Summary Nation Creation Points: 23 Home Sectors: 1 Core Sectors: 2 Mid Sectors: 2 Colony Sectors: 4 Home Sector Sector Zero - L1 Capital: Elysion Population: 60,000,000,000 GDP: 14,000 meta-bills Developmental Features: hyperspace junction, warp wate Core Sectors Sector One - L2 Capital: Gettysburg Population: 50,000,000,000 GDP: 11,000 meta-bills Developmental Features: warp gate Sector Two - K1 Capital: Vladivostok Population: 50,000,000,000 GDP: 11,000 meta-bills Developmental Features: warp gate Mid Sectors Sector Three - M2 Capital: New Britain Population: 30,000,000,000 GDP: 9,000 meta-bills Developmental Features: high-GDP economy Sector Four - M1 Capital: Izam Population: 30,000,000,000 GDP: 6,000 meta-bills Developmental Features: n/a Colony Sectors Sector Five - L3 Capital: Dustball Population: 10,000,000,000 GDP: 2,000 meta-bills Developmental Features: n/a Sector Six - M3 Capital: Hale Population: 10,000,000,000 GDP: 2,000 meta-bills Developmental Features: n/a Sector Seven - M4 Capital: Crimea Population: 10,000,000,000 GDP: 2,000 meta-bills Developmental Features: n/a Sector Eight - N5 Capital: New Haven Population: 10,000,000,000 GDP: 2,000 meta-bills Developmental Features: n/a Economic Statistics GDP: 59,000 meta-bills Army Budget: 15,000 meta-bills Navy Budget: 44,000 meta-bills Army Order of Battle See also: Humanist Union Army Elite Forces: $6000 Cost, 100,000,000 men @50,000/$1 with x3 kit multiplier Regular Forces: $6000 Cost, 400,000,000 men @100,000/$1 with x1.5 kit multiplier Secondary Forces: $3000 Cost, 600,000,000 men @200,000/$1 with x1 kit multiplier Navy Order of Battle See also: Humanist Union Navy Ares-class dreadnought - 400/ea x10 - $4000 Revolution-class battleship - 200/ea x30 - $6000 Anya Paterson-class battlecruiser - 160/ea x50 - $8000 November-class heavy cruiser - 80/ea x105 - $8400 Broadsword-class cruiser - 60/ea x125 - $7500 Raven-class destroyer - 40/ea x150 - $6000 Sparrow-class corvette - 25/ea x160 - $4000 Lightbringer-class corvette - 4/ea x25 - $100 General State Information Formal State Name: Humanist Union Common Shortened Name(s): The Union Currency: Union Credit (UC) Government Type: socialist meritocracy Flag: Stylized outline of a red fist holding a hammer over a white field. National Motto: "Sic Semper Tyrannis" (thus always to tyrants), sometimes placed on a seal of a peasant holding a toppled medieval king at swordpoint. National Anthem: The Internationale Head of State: Coordinator Roland Stein Legislature: The Federal Legislature; 180 senators serving 8-year terms, elected by sitting senators upon retirement, death, or term closure. Judiciary: The Federal Court; appointed by the Coordinator, approved by the Federal Legislature; serve lifetime terms unless removed by consensus of the Coordinator and Federal Legislature. Major Political Parties: New Humanist Progressive Party (NHPP), Socialist Party (SP), Syndicalist Worker's Party (SWP), Democratic Republican Party (DRP) Minor Political Parties: Christian People's Party (CPP), Islamic Victory Party (IVP), Republican People's Party (RPP), Communist Worker's Party (CWP), Libertarian Party (LP), Coalition of Believers Party (CBP) Capital: Elysion City, Elysion, Sector Zero Prominent Religions: Catholic Christianity (variant), Christianity (various), Islam (various), Sikhism, Buddhism Languages: English (language of state), Russian, German, French, Arabic History See History of the Humanist Union. Cultural Attitudes General The Humanist Union, as a socialist meritocracy, can be said to hold the maxim of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution" at heart. Union citizens can be broadly said to have a disdain for "layabouts," commonly stereotyped as bureaucrats, bluebloods, and market economy kingpins. In extreme cases, this disdain carries over into attitudes towards the unaugmented masses; the slur of "chimp" is not uncommon and implies not only mental and physical inferiority, but uselessness. Use of the pejorative tends to be at its most extreme where the elderly are concerned; it is not used in polite company. Racism and sexism are all but nonpresent in the Union; their failure as ideologies dates back centuries. Humanists are generally trusting of their government and positive towards government in general, remarkable due to relative recency of times of famine and devastation. Part of this affection originates in the cult of personality Coordinator Stein enjoys; he has managed to achieve the status of a "national father" in the minds of most typical citizens. The Union's extensive social support systems have won over even non-humanists. Union citizens consider housing, occupation, and medical care to be rights, not privileges. Voting in the lower levels of government is not only allowed but actively encouraged; the chaos of the pre-revolutionary days has produced a modern public that takes civic participation very seriously. Lifestyle The Humanist Union's largely socialist economy provides for its citizens, but demands in turn a spartan lifestyle. Citizens generally live in massive residence blocks, with more productive families gaining some living space privileges. Union citizens exalt spartan, practical living endorsed in new humanist ideology to the status of a virtue; excess of luxury, space, and goods relative to one's contribution is considered vulgar, not a sign of success. Many Humanists live with their extended families - a practice dating back to the pre-revolutionary economic collapse - and government authorities have encouraged this. Modern cities in the Humanist Union have a variety of distractions for citizens at leisure: theatre and physical sports are heavily encouraged. Vid entertainment is extremely popular, both at home and in theaters; foreign films are one of the few foreign products Humanists enthusiastically indulge in. The most popular national sport is rugby. Politics and the Military Politics in the Humanist Union are relatively free despite the authoritarian nature of the federal government, and citizens consider participation important. The vast majority of citizens are new humanists or socialists, with syndicalists and democratic republicans significantly less common. Minor parties are viewed by the public at large with varying degrees of suspicion: theist parties and the free market Libertarian Party are viewed with particular hostility outside the political fringes. Political participation in the fringes of the Union is significantly less involved. Save locations where the Progressives had a powerful presence, fringe colonists view politics with skepticism and would rather leave it to the authorities. The Union's military is, in general, very popular; citizens tend to view its members as heroes. This attitude has multiple roots: the military's status as the primary catalyst for overthrowing the corrupt republic, its largely-voluntary membership, and its heavy involvement in civic "glory projects," such as delivering aid to areas hit with natural disasters. Joining the military is a popular route to attaining expanded privileges from the state, including genetic and cybernetic enhancement. Foreigners and Aliens Citizens in the Humanist Union are known for their cool attitude towards foreigners, human and alien. This distrust has multiple roots. The Humanist Union, even in its republican days, was an isolated state on the fringe of colonized space. In the worst days of the republic, there was a strong popular sentiment that corporations were draining the lifeblood of the state's economy in dealings with foreign states, and that foreign corporate interests in general exerted more influence than was seemly. Distrust of aliens is rooted largely in new humanist ideology, which teaches that aliens are, at their core, "rival animals," and will pursue their species' interests above others. The Union's lack of alien occupants and contact with alien states throughout history beyond the most trivial has enhanced cautious attitudes further. Religion Though many religions have representation in the Union, the state's population is overwhelmingly atheistic or apathetic, with even many self-identified theists showing little specific dedication. Popular perception of religion relegates its tenants to fairy tale status, something the government actively encourages. Private schools - including religious schools - are illegal in the Union's minor education system, making cross-generational religious indoctrination more difficult. Further, the Humanist Union is explicitly identified as a secular state in its founding documents. While this does not prevent religiously-motivated political parties, it does reduce the visibility of religion in public affairs further. In modern times, many religious sects and parties are forced to combine their efforts to make meaningful contributions to government. Political Parties New Humanist Progressive Party The de facto ruling party of the Humanist Union, the NHPP makes up the massive majority of the federal legislature. New humanism can broadly be described as a combination of Marxist-Leninist notions and more modern socialist concepts. The central tenant of new humanism - from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution - is accompanied by a formal notion that the state exists explicitly to serve its citizens and should be destroyed where it does not. New humanism exalts the rule of law, the ethical behavior of the government, and the pursuit of reason to the status of critical virtues in a post-revolutionary society. New humanism is an expansionist ideology, teaching liberation and unification of other human populations as a moral obligation. It's also somewhat anti-alien: New humanism holds alien sapients to be "animal rivals," though mainstream new humanism advises watchfulness and careful cooperation rather than more violent behavior. Another central theme in new humanism and to the party involves improvement of the species beyond mere humanity; it requires something more than a human to unite, fairly govern, and uplift the teeming masses. Socialist Party One of the oldest parties, the Union's Socialist Party dates back to the earliest days of the colony on Elysion, and its power has waxed and waned for centuries. Broadly speaking, socialist reach waned with the growth and especially the corruption of the ICR. The Socialist Party gradually grew revolutionary in its leanings, though it advocated all-inclusive revolution and plurality rather than new humanism's Leninist "vanguard party." While this produced a party more sensitive to the public's desires, it also made the Socialist Party slow to move and decide, sometimes coming to entirely undesirable compromises. The Socialist Party and its supporters were crucial to the Progressive Revolution; they held more appeal in the public, while the NHPP's powerbase was rooted mostly in the military. Today, the Socialist Party is easily the second-most-powerful political party in the Humanist Union, enjoying significant power on various planets. Syndicalist Worker's Party Advocating reorganization of the economy into a federation of trade unions managed through democratic processes, the syndicalists have been a significant presence in politics since the economic decline that began in the late 30th and 31st centuries. Aggressive from the beginning, the Syndicalist Worker's Party sympathized with the New Humanist Progressive Party's desire for revolutionary tactics, themselves having engaged in terrorism for decades. Syndicalist guerilla brigades worked closely with the NHPP during the revolution, but the dreamt-after trade union federation did not materialize and many syndicalists found the new government under Stein to be little better than the ICR's plutocratic reign. Though the Syndicalist Worker's Party held one of the positions on the initial ruling council and has considerable political clout even today, it has grown increasingly hostile towards the established Union government. Syndicalist feelings of betrayal have made their extremist elements among the most violent in the Union. Democratic Republican Party Originally the Revolutionary Republican Party, the DRP was originally an offshoot for the ICR's People's Republican Party. Though they advocated that the ICR's systems largely be left alone, they were strongly opposed to the heavy corruption that permeated the ICR's federal government and promoted extensive reforms to prevent future corporate corruption. Never as popular as the Socialist Party, they formed a loose power bloc with them following the election of President Harrison to the head as the ICR. As the government's brutality grew, the RRP was increasingly driven over to the side of violent overthrow of the government. The RRP was valuable to the more radical revolutionaires in that it was able to put a moderate face on their intentions. The success of the revolution saw the RRP renamed to the DRP and a representative of theirs being assigned to the CCP's ruling council, but they steadily waned in influence due to hostility towards their "regressionist" principles and their soured relation with the Socialist Party. Today, the DRP's main enclaves are in sectors Seven and One, who have traditionally been less than enamored with new humanism. Christian People's Party Prior to the revolution, the most common form of religion practiced in the ICR was a variant of Catholicism led by its own pope. Shady connections between the church and various corporate interests saw the church's popularity drop tremendously during the years of recession and corruption. The revolution saw their influence in government and economics severed entirely; none of the main parties in the Progressive alliance had any use for theists of any stripe. The new humanists in particular, with their focus on reason, enacted policies hostile to the church and organized religion in general. Though largely run by Catholic figures, the Christian People's Party claims to represent the interest of the Union's Christians in general. Its influence in federal and even planetary politics is minimal at best; the CPP regularly sides with whichever parties are taking the hardest line against new humanist policies. Islamic Victory Party Similar in power to the Christian People's Party, the IVP claims to represent the Union's Islamic minority against the depredations of an aggressively secular state. Though it lacked the extensive corruption that characterizes the CPP's past, its stubbornness towards the government both before and after the revolution have earned it few alliances at any level of government at any point in time. More recently, the IVP has sided with the CPP in various issues in an attempt to defeat their "greater enemies." Republican People's Party A party formed out of those supporters of the old ICR government not purged in the post-revolutionary years, the RPP advocates that the Coordinator be removed from his position and the legislature reopened to be accountable to the people. Potential alliances with the socialists, syndicalists, or democratic republicans have largely been prevented by the party's economically leftists policies and willingness to embrace right-wing social policies where it wins increased votes and influence. Brazenly declaring the federal government to be in illegal excess of its power, the RPP is quite noisy but not very influential. It is a popular urban legend that the RPP is headed by a new humanist deep cover agent whose job it is to gather and observe old-style Republicans and to undermine the old republic's image in the public's eye. The RPP has long been on friendly terms with the CPP and, more recently, the IVP. Its influence does not extend far past Sector One. Government Offices and Departments of Note Department of the State (Access Denied) Office of Psionics Falling under the authority of the Department of the State, the Office of Psionics is tasked with discovering, rounding up, educating, and training citizens of the Union that demonstrate ESP. Founded by the current state department director William Bryce, the Office of Psionics regularly administers tests for latent ESP abilities throughout the Union's mandatory primary education system. Those who demonstrate ability are removed from the mainstream and placed in specialized, high-quality institutions to continue or complete their formal education alongside various new materials. While this is technically voluntary, few parents hold their children back; the higher standard of education and guarantee of a prestigious federal job are enough for most parents. Inductees into the Office of Psionics' schools are heavily indoctrinated in new humanist political theory and trained across a broad spectrum of ESP fields, with a focus on empathy, telepathy, and precognition. Graduates from this system are deployed throughout a variety of government posts, serving in the Department of Internal Intelligence, Department of External Intelligence, as well as in the Department of Justice and Rehabilitation. Even those who aren't inducted into federal training programs are carefully monitored by the government and offered education personally when their parents need no longer be consulted (at age 16). Department of Internal Intelligence Office of Political Infidelity Formed after the attempt on Coordinator Stein's life, the Office of Political Infidelity has always existed in some nebulous form or another within the Progressive revolutionaries' intelligence arm. Establishment under the Department of Internal Intelligence gave the office more clear objectives and powers. The Office is made up agents assigned to investigate the political leanings of authority figures, rooting out radicals, conservatives, and would-be coup leaders. Though the Office enjoyed significant power in its early days and made a grim name for itself, the modern Office engages in no noticable political terror and concerns itself with loyalty to the state, not political orthodoxy. Undercover officers can often be found in the departments of potentially-questionable individuals as well as in the military, where they're usually referred to as AFPs - "another fucking political." The syndicalist high commander of the army, Marshal Adam DuBois, supposedly coined this term to refer to new subordinates assigned to his office during the chaotic early days of the Union. Category:National Information Category:Humanist Union